ABSTRACT
In this work, the authors have studied especially the reliability and the limits of the perironeal puncture lavage. About 230 cases of abdominal trauma collected in the services of surgical emergencies and surgical intensive care of the Ibn Rochd Teaching Hospital of Casablanca from 1980 to 1984. In this series, the child and the young adult of masculin sex are the most concerned, the road accidents constitute the most frequent etiology. The reliability of the method in our experience is 93%. The caution of use are reminded; 11% of wrongly positive results concern particularly the retro-peritoneal hematoma; the problem of the tiny intra-peritoneal lesion is discussed, the risk of the wrongly negative results is of 3%. The indications, sensibility and specificity of the peritoneal puncture lavage are discussed. That is a practice and useful examination, which diminishes the delay of diagnosis and the mortality in the case of abdominal trauma without evident clinic sign, and in the polytraumatised